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Boost your desktop's audio performance with a sound card from one of the premier names in computer audio—Creative Labs. The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic is designed to enhance your digital music collection. The X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer improves both low and high frequencies giving you smoother, cleaner sound.

The card's audio processor, with help from Creative's CMSS-3D technology, is able to remix your stereo audio into surround sound—even through stereo headphones. These two features also team together to "SuperRip" your CDs, boosting the fidelity of your digital music above that of low-quality MP3 files.

X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer The X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer enhances MP3 and movie sound for cleaner, smoother and more audio that is even better than what you would expect from original CDs or DVDs! It even automatically upgrades existing games to Xtreme Fidelity quality.

Dimensions & Weight

Dimensions

7.25" x 5" x 0.9"

Weight

2.6 lbs

Package Contents

Package Contents

Sound Blaster X-Fi PCI Card Quick Start LeafletDriver Disk

Manufacturer Warranty

Parts

1 year

Quick Info

WarrantyBeyond any applicable Newegg return policy, this item is warranted independently by the product's Manufacturer or a Third party. Below is a summary provided for convenience only and may not be accurate or current.
Read full details.

Rating: 3/5Stay away from this card

Pros: This card sounds great. Much better then onboard sound. I believe it is also the cheapest X-Fi card that supports EAX.

Cons: Drivers suck. You will have about 10(No joke) processes running at all times when you install this card. Creative hasn't released an update for the drivers yet. It screws up for me and 2 other people I know that own it while playing games. Some of them crash to desktop, some lock up, mine personally just stops recognizing the card everytime I restart. I'm going to reformat and try again, if it doesn't work this time, I'm sending it back.

Other Thoughts: Newegg was great in this deal, if we were rating them it would be a 5. If we were rating just Creative I would give it a 1. But since we have to rate both, I gave it a three, Newegg shipped fast and has great customer service, Creative gave this great card poor drivers and poor driver support.

Rating: 3/5Really Worth it?

Pros: The card was awsome the first week I had it. Worked like a charm. Went in easy and there was no issues.

Cons: After week one it started having some odd issues. It would basically act like it was not in my comp. Windows would see it was there, but none of the drivers worked. There were no IRQ conflicts (it was the only audio device active and the one of two PCI devices the other being my vid card). Eventually I had to almost every 3 days uninstall and completely reinstall even switching PCI slots from time to time. Finally after a month of this the thing simply stopped working and would never work again, not in my computer or anyone elses (creative made me try it in some one elses comp before they would let me RMA it). Creative Tech support is annoying and not helpful. Took them a month to agree to give me an RMA and I had to pay for the shipping both ways even though they made a defective product. Took them a month and a half to get the card in the mail to me and never updated me at all on its status I had to keep calling and asking them.

Other Thoughts: When the repaired card got to me it once again worked like a charm, but I've only had it for like a month so we will see if it lasts this time. I only wish that turtle beach would offer cards with the same game features as Creative. I never had any issues with any turtle beach card. Always had issues with Creatives though it seems.

Rating: 5/5Readme Please, had a year

Pros: I am a gamer and I've owned this card for almost a year now. Awsome sounding card. Bf2142 runs fine in ultra mode. The fastest card you can get. Sped up my games. Really. Before I built my new computer I had this thing in a p4 1.5 ghz with x1600pro, and bf2 was barely playable with the settings all the way down.After I installed this card I could turn the settings all up to medium and it played smooth. Amazing.Now I have it in my new system connected to a set of logitech z-680 I bought at a pawn shot. Its like your really there.

Cons: I have had problems with crackling and popping that would stay until I restarted the PC. Thought it was the hardware. My friend had the same problem and told me to update the drivers. Did that and problem persisted. then I removed all drivers and reinstalled old and then reinstalled the updated the new drivers and it fixed it. I think it has to do with registry cleaners messing up the registry. I switched reg cleaners and haven't had a prob since.

Other Thoughts: Read a lot of comparison reviews out there and this card is still the best, sound and performance wise. I love this card. If I had to buy a new one for 100bucks every three months cause they went bad, I would. Just cant live without it once you've experienced the sound. Luckily I've had no major prob. with mine. Still working. Works fine in my new system too. Ecs 570 sli m.b.,pentium d 805, 7900gto,1.5gig. Just try it.

Rating: 5/5Great

Pros: Sounds great for games, music, movies... Sound in general. Surround sound separation is great in games and movies. Drivers and stuff all worked great, install was easy for me. Flexi-Jack is ok in mic mode.

Cons: Most of the software included is basically useless, 24-bit "Crystalizer" is a gimmick. If you want digial surround sound out of the Flexi-Jack with all sound (not just pre-encoded digital surround, like most movies) you have to buy an adaptor. If you want analog 7.1, you have to buy special cables.

Other Thoughts: I have a Dell XPS 400 with 7.1 onboard audio, and this doesn't sound any different, really. The reason I bought this was for Oblivion, which pretty much required a sound card because the sound took up so much of my processor's power it would slow down any time a four-legged creature was in ear-shot. I read some reviews of this card, and haven't regretted buying it. Having surround sound in games makes a real difference these days.

Since I only have a 6.1 setup (and 5.1 headphones) the lack of 7.1 didn't hurt me at all, although I don't really care for having to buy separate cables just for things like that, nor having to buy an adaptor for digial out; you can use coaxial, but for optical you need it. This doesn't affect me, analog works fine, just something to be aware of.

Overall, if you need to upgrade to a soundcard and don't want bargain-basement, but don't want to pay too much either, this is a great one to buy.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Did you?

Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!

Anonymous

1/28/2007 1:45:06 PM

Tech Level: 4/5

Ownership: 5/5

Rating: 1/5Worthless.

Cons: Crackles and moms constantly regardless of your activities, even if you're just starting at your desktop wallpaper. This problem has existed for a YEAR and Creative has done NOTHING about it except Nvidia (even though Creative's competitors work FLAWLESSLY on the same systems).

Other Thoughts: I was prepared to drop $260+ on the latest and greatest Creative Labs offerings and while having all the fancy EAX stuff would be nice, I will use one of the competing sound cards out there at half the price and none of the problems. I have no interest in ever purchasing a Creative Labs product again.

Rating: 5/5Must have for any audiophile

Pros: Make sure you have a BIG hard drive or two if you plan on using this card, like i do, to super rip your CDs to DVD-Audio quality i.e. 4900-6500kbps or more (yea, thats right, 4.9-6.5Mbps), makes em sound really good.

Cons: None, except the lack of driver updates, but i havent seen the problems with the current ones and Windows XP pro.

Other Thoughts: I use an Asus A8V-Deluxe mobo and i have had NO conflicts, other than when you install MediaSource 5 make sure you uninstall the one you have (probobly 3.x) or you will have both listed in the console.

Rating: 5/5Works Extremely Well

Pros: Works great! Very noticeable improvement in sound quality compared to my old integrated audio. Interface is very easy to use but is also very customizable (lots of sound options). Moreover, I there was a LARGE improvement in the speed my games run at...I was getting annoying fps drops in Oblivion that this card completely eliminated (which may have been because the sigmatel integrated audio on my machine was terrible, but still).

Through the Newegg EggXpert Review Program, Newegg invites its best reviewers, known as EggXperts, to post opinions about new and pre-release products to help their fellow customers make informed buying decisions.Click here for more details.

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